College Football Rankings: Projected Top 25, Week 10 – Big 12 gets wild

Minnesota continues to push its way up the AP Top 25 as they win big week after week in Big Ten play. The Golden Gophers head into the final month of the regular season with a two-game lead in the Big Ten West standings after their 52-10 beatdown of Maryland in Minneapolis on Saturday afternoon in Week 9, and they will vault up a few spots into the top 15 of the polls this week after the resounding win at home.

Tanner Morgan was held to 138 yards and two touchdowns through the air on 12-of-21 passing. But the running game picked up the slack in a big way, with Rodney Smith leading the way with 103 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries. As a team, the Golden Gophers finished with 321 yards and four rushing scores on 54 carries.

The victory set up a huge showdown of unbeaten squads after Minnesota’s bye in Week 10. On November 9, the Golden Gophers host Penn State in a game that will feature a pair of unbeaten Big Ten squads in a possible preview of the conference championship game a month later in Indianapolis. If they win over the Nittany Lions, Minnesota will start to really (yes, really) look like a possible College Football Playoff threat.